house made of dawn
Posted on Dec 26th, 2007
by 
jhalifax
jhalifax
practice in the deep quiet of winter
the southwest, clear diamond blue skies
smell of pinyon smoke
the dances in the pueblos echoing in our valley
a sense of timelessness as i walk at dawn to the zendo
then these words of scott momaday:
“A few days ago she had seen the corn dance at Cochiti. It was beautiful and strange. It had seemed to her that the dancers meant to dance forever in that slow, deliberate way. The dancers had looked straight ahead, to the exclusion of everything, but she had not thought about that at the time. And they had not smiled. They were grave, so unspeakably grave. They were not merely sad or formal or devout; it was nothing like that. It was simply that they were grave, distant, intent upon something that she could not see. Their eyes were held upon some vision out of range, something away in the end of distance, some reality that she did not know, or even suspect. What was it that they saw? Probably they saw nothing at all, nothing at all. But then that was the trick, wasn't it? To see nothing at all, nothing in the absolute. To see beyond the landscape, beyond every shape and shadow and color, that was to see nothing. THAT was to be free and finished, complete, spiritual. To see nothing slowly and by degrees, at last; to see first the pure, bright colors of near things, then all pollutions of color, all things blended and vague and dim in the distance, to see finally beyond the clouds and the pale wash of the sky---the none and nothing beyond that. To say "beyond the mountain," and to mean it, to mean, simply, beyond everything for which the mountain stands, of which it signifies the being. Somewhere, if only she could see it, there was neither nothing nor anything. And there, just there, THAT was the last reality.”
N. Scott Momaday, from "House Made of Dawn"
the southwest, clear diamond blue skies
smell of pinyon smoke
the dances in the pueblos echoing in our valley
a sense of timelessness as i walk at dawn to the zendo
then these words of scott momaday:
“A few days ago she had seen the corn dance at Cochiti. It was beautiful and strange. It had seemed to her that the dancers meant to dance forever in that slow, deliberate way. The dancers had looked straight ahead, to the exclusion of everything, but she had not thought about that at the time. And they had not smiled. They were grave, so unspeakably grave. They were not merely sad or formal or devout; it was nothing like that. It was simply that they were grave, distant, intent upon something that she could not see. Their eyes were held upon some vision out of range, something away in the end of distance, some reality that she did not know, or even suspect. What was it that they saw? Probably they saw nothing at all, nothing at all. But then that was the trick, wasn't it? To see nothing at all, nothing in the absolute. To see beyond the landscape, beyond every shape and shadow and color, that was to see nothing. THAT was to be free and finished, complete, spiritual. To see nothing slowly and by degrees, at last; to see first the pure, bright colors of near things, then all pollutions of color, all things blended and vague and dim in the distance, to see finally beyond the clouds and the pale wash of the sky---the none and nothing beyond that. To say "beyond the mountain," and to mean it, to mean, simply, beyond everything for which the mountain stands, of which it signifies the being. Somewhere, if only she could see it, there was neither nothing nor anything. And there, just there, THAT was the last reality.”
N. Scott Momaday, from "House Made of Dawn"
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Zendo
July 2008 
Thank you for this. it reminds me of a Hopi Home Dance I witnessed a few years ago. In sending the katsina spirits back to the San Francisco Peaks for the autumn and winter there was a passage into a different kind of energy that was really a displacement of energy, a stillness.